TV favorites on DVD are a mood enhancer

May 29, 2003|By Diane Werts, Newsday, Tribune Newspapers.

The biggest TV sellers on DVD tend to be cult offerings -- "The X-Files," "Monty Python," "Star Trek." But there's no reason that has to be the case. Two great recent examples of more mainstream fare certainly are worth purchase consideration -- even if they're on TV every day already.

"Frasier" and "Cheers" on DVD are like on-demand mood enhancers. Pop 'em in the player and get happy. The first season of each acclaimed sitcom was just released in a four-disc foldout set from Paramount Home Video, with 24 episodes of "Frasier" and 22 episodes of "Cheers," each listed at $50 (discounts widely available). Both shows hit their stride almost instantly, making these early episodes especially delightful.

Perhaps this is why. On their optional audio commentary under the 1993 "Frasier" pilot, co-creators Peter Casey and David Lee discuss why they eschewed establishing shots of buildings to place the show's happenings: "We always thought that it might be fun to trust America's intellect."

This is proven in the pilot, as stars Kelsey Grammer, John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce play their initial family conflict as drama, with an especially brutal exchange between Grammer and Mahoney about the latter moving in to set the series in motion.

Tour Frasier's apartment

Such careful crafting is the focus of an in-depth 20-minute "making of" short in which cast and crew do on-set interviews to recount the show's character development and casting. Supplementing that is a virtual "tour" of Frasier's apartment in which set designers explain such inspirations as dad's famously awful recliner.

Wouldn't we like to hear the same about the "Cheers" bar? But that equally clever show's 1982 first-season set is skimpy on the extras, slapping together a trivia quiz and a quick interview with star Ted Danson. While it's great to see the episodes looking so crisp and uncut, it's even greater to learn more about a show you love enough to drop DVD money on. Neither the "Cheers" nor "Frasier" set includes episode descriptions either, making it tougher to find your favorites.

"Homicide: Life on the Street" gets this right. Synopses of the 13 episodes from the first two mini-seasons of this trend-setting Baltimore police drama are printed on slick half-width plastic jackets inside a four-disc box recently released by A&E Home Video ($70 list). There's more info onscreen, where disc menus appear on the squadroom "board" listing active cases. In both a video interview and pilot audio commentary, producers Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson outline the way their 1993 project shunned standard cop-show chases and violence.

`Dr Quinn' synopses

"Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" doesn't get fancy with commentary or interviews, but you can easily find episodes of this family western on its 1992 first-season set of five discs from A&E ($80). Each disc has printed synopses, with lengthier summaries onscreen. A&E includes its "Biography" of star Jane Seymour, along with historical text about the show's Colorado Springs setting.

Facts are definitely not crucial to "Charlie's Angels," the TV jiggle-fest whose first season arrived on five discs from Columbia TriStar Home Video ($50). Producer Aaron Spelling's eye-candy romp shows its stuff in the credits, where Farrah Fawcett and friends wear as little as possible. Don't get too excited, though. This 1976 series is clean. Too bad the source material isn't. It's grainy and flat -- TV filming was quick and dirty then -- and the DVD package is equally dull. The discs come in unmarked plastic sleeves. The episodes have no chapter stops marking different segments. Extras aren't. A better buy might be Columbia's single disc "The Greatest '70s Cop Shows" ($20), which includes "Angels" alongside premiere episodes of shoot-'em-ups "Starsky and Hutch" (1975), "S.W.A.T." (1975), "Police Woman" (1974) and the "relevant" drama "The Rookies" (1972).

But one episode is never enough for cult faves. The 2000 first season of "Dark Angel" comes in a six-disc foldout set from Fox Home Entertainment ($60), with thumping Dolby Surround sound in English, Spanish and French. Who knew this futuristic actioner was "really a social realist piece of business"? That's what co-creator Charles Eglee says in a 21-minute feature with crew and cast detailing their show's genetic engineering premise and hip-hop Depression setting.